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All His Commandments

Every week we worship God by confessing our sins. We know that man’s nature is sinful because God reveals it: all have sinned and fallen short of His glory. We also know our own hearts, not perfectly, but what we know is enough to know that this regular time for confession is rarely unnecessary.

And yet, while we understand that sinless perfection will only finally be attainable in our glorified state, the goal of a pastor’s preaching is not that you would be eager to confess, as relevant as that is. The goal is that you would have nothing to confess.

The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. (1 Timothy 1:5)

God charges, that is, He entrusts, overseers in the church to command and teach the word of God so that Christians would be godly. “Godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:8).

Connecting it with the categories of Paul’s aim, godliness looks like unmixed love and unmixed motives and unmixed faith. Godliness looks like full affections and no regrets and profound trust. As we increase in godly character our conduct should also be more defined as godly, and that should give us less and less to repent from. A believer with pure love and a good conscience and a sincere faith has a longing for zero sin.

I went to the parent’s part of a driver’s ed. class last week with my oldest, and we watched a video about traffic deaths in Washington state. The video showed people answering questions about how many die each year in car crashes, and how many deaths are a realistic goal, and then how many deaths are the desired aim in their own family. Of course the answer to the last question is zero. It’s an easy answer. It’s obvious. And every disciple’s desire for zero sin should be as absolute.

If you have sinned this week, you are in the right place. While God’s Word gives us light to walk in, if we do sin, “we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1). Confess your sin, and trust Him to cleanse your conscience and to enable you to keep all His commandments.